Two curious, tramp-like characters, Vladimir and Estragon, meet in an imprecise place, at the foot of a skeletal tree. Their purpose: to wait for Godot, an enigmatic figure about whom nothing will ever be known. They don’t know when he will come, or even if he will come. They don’t know if the tree they’re waiting under is the right one, if the day is the day of the appointment. They are simply convinced that they must wait. To pass the time, they chat aimlessly. Distracting them from their intolerable wait, a couple turns up:
Pozzo and Lucky. The latter, harnessed at the neck, carries the luggage of the other, who leads him to the whip. After their departure, time continues to pass, until a young boy comes to tell Vladimir and Estragon that Godot is not coming. The two companions decide to split up and leave, but they don’t move. End of Act I. The second act follows essentially the same pattern.
Samuel Beckett, born on April 13, 1906 in Foxrock (Dublin) and died on December 22, 1989 in Paris, was an Irish writer, poet and playwright of mainly French and English expression, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
He wrote novels, but is best known for his theatrical work. His most famous play is Waiting for Godot. His work is austere and minimalist, which is generally interpreted as the expression of a profound pessimism about the human condition.
In 1969, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his work, which, through a renewal of the forms of the novel and the theater, takes its elevation from the destitution of modern man”.
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